Solitaries
of DeKoven is a Religious Order of hermits within the Episcopal Church
that embraces an ecumenical expression. With the death of two of our members
and due to increasing age of the existing member, we are no longer
accepting new inquirers for vowed membership.

At this point, there is one Core member at the Vigeat Radix Hermitage. Although we may be small in numbers, we endeavour to live our vows
faithfully in marked solitude and prayer in joyful abandonment to God's love
and life in the silence of the hermitage. Our day revolves around the Divine
Office, contemplation, and intercession, study, and manual labour. Besides
the normal tasks involved in living a simple life we we provide for our
support by making and selling Anglican Prayer
Beads, Pater Noster Cords, and
other prayer aids as a way to support ourselves and
as a vehicle to intercessory prayer.

We are dedicated to solitary prayer on behalf of the Church and world.
There have always been hermits or solitaries in the Church. At times this
vocation has been so hidden as to be almost invisible, but today there seems
to be a movement of the Holy Spirit calling forth the Solitary vocation once
again. Although the vocation to solitude may appear strange in today’s
world, hermits follow in the footsteps of many thousands of people
throughout the centuries who have drawn apart to spend their lives in prayer
for the Church and the world. In the 3rd and 4th centuries hundreds of
thousands of men and women lived in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and
Syria as hermits or anchorites (the terms are interchangeable). This was the
beginning of the vowed Religious life in the Christian Church and branched
into both communal and solitary expressions of that life.

The vocation to silence and solitude witnesses to the fact that life is
measured not by doing but by being. The work of prayer demands a discipline
comparable to any other endeavor; and this work of prayer is not one of
life’s extracurricular activities, done in spare time, but the very
foundation of any other work a Christian may undertake.

Solitaries of DeKoven have as their patron
Blessed James DeKoven, a deeply spiritual and courageous man who stood
against the tide of his times in the mid 1870's. It is his fierce spirit of
vocation and devotion that is the inspiration of the Solitary of DeKoven.